While they may never do business with you, they do business for you by recommending you to others. Social agents are equally as important to business growth as prospects, and the biggest mistake salespeople make is undervaluing them.

Picture this:

Invisible buyers are prospects who seek out information on their own before making a purchase and before you know they exist. Say you own a small company who makes and sells bamboo flooring. One day, a prospect of yours gets on Facebook and posts the status, “Looking to put in new floors in the house. Thinking bamboo. Any recommendations?”

You can’t reach this person. You don’t even know they exist. But you have a friend who sees this status online. Your friend has never bought your bamboo floors himself (he’s a carpet kind of guy), but he knows you do great work, so he responds to the status with your name, website, and his affirmation that you install the best bamboo floors of anyone in the area. While he isn’t your customer, he just found you one.

What Makes a Great Social Agent?

Not everyone you know makes a valuable social agent. You have to invest in the right relationships with the right people to find agents who will want to represent you. Here is the sort of person you should look for.

1. People like you

A good social agent should be “your people.” Look for people who share your worldview and value systems. Your best social agents will be the sort of people you want to spend time with, the sort of people you’d pick to be trapped on a desert island with. Why? It’s psychological. When these people promote you, they’ll feel as if they are promoting a piece of themselves.

2. Background Singers

Not everyone can be the star of the show every time. Good social agents must not threatened by the success of others. (tweet this)

In the example above, let’s say the social agent doesn’t just prefer carpet over bamboo flooring – let’s say he actually owns a carpet business. A good social agent would be comfortable recommending your business anyway because he knows it is what the prospect is looking for. He doesn’t try to push the prospect to buy carpet instead, he’s comfortable enough with his own business to step aside and sing backup vocals for you this round.

3. Givers

Similar to background singers, social agents need to give more than they take. If the carpet salesman only thinks about himself, he’ll never recommend your bamboo business. He’ll always try to convert your prospects into his own. Great social agents love helping others succeed as much as they love success for themselves.

The key to a stellar social agent is their desire to help you – social agency is personal. Cultivate strong relationships with social agents so that they’ll go the extra mile to bring customers straight to your product or service.

For more information on how to leverage your network of social agents to win more invisible sales, visit conversedigital.com or purchase The Invisible Sale today — with an enitre chapter devoted to cultivating your relationship with your social agents.